1）据pocketgamer报道，苹果App Store日前推出一个“Editor’s Choice”版块，向用户展示苹果工作人员所推荐的应用和游戏。

目前该版块在英国App Store推荐的是Chilingo游戏《Air Mail》，在美国推荐的游戏则是MiniClip作品《Extreme Skater》。

据称这是苹果提升App Store总体曝光率的举措，但目前尚无法得知该版块挑选应用和游戏的标准。目前来看，只有大型公司的产品有望进入这一推荐版块，例如Facebook新款摄像应用。

apple-app-store-editors-choice(from intomobile.com)

苹果还展开了App of the Week活动，将每周通过Twiiter向用户提供一款免费应用，首款App of the Week推荐游戏是ZeptoLab作品《Cut the Rope: Experiments》（原先售价99美分）。

2）Wooga工作室产品经理Teemu Haila在最近的Nordic Game大会上介绍了《Diamond Dash》移植到iOS平台的经验，他认为最关键的环节是重新设计用户界面。

wooga-diamond-dash(from scribbal.com)

据他所言，必须让用户界面适用于所有群体，同时能够与运行设备自然兼容。这一过程最初始于测试（即使当时的设计还停留于纸质模型阶段），经过大量迭代之后，运行游戏时首先看到的是玩家好友列表，因为这是游戏的社交元素所在。

此外，Wooga还很重视游戏新手教程设计，会通过数据分析找到用户所遇到的问题，等到一切准备就绪时才在2011年11月份向加拿大iPhone平台推出这个最低可行性产品。意外的是，虽然Wooga希望低调发布这款游戏iPhone版本，但加拿大App Store当时却推荐了这款游戏。

Haila认为这款游戏直到2011年末发布1.3版本时才成为真正意义上的可行产品，经过不断润色和调整，《Diamond Dash》持续向应用营收榜单前列进军，目前已跻身美国榜单前100名。

《Diamond Dash》的主要开发工作由一个独立的Flash开发团队负责（使用独立的代码库），目前只有3人负责处理iOS版本的开发工作，但参与该项目的人员曾一度超过100人。

3）据games.com报道，App Store最近出现一款模仿《Temple Run》的iOS游戏《Subway Surfers》，玩家在游戏中的目标是在屏幕上不断往前跑，一路搜集钱币和积分。同《Temple Run》一样，玩家可在身边发现四处散落的道具（游戏邦注：它们或可增加你的分值，或可让你加速，甚至还可以让所有的钱币都自动飞向玩家）。

Subway Surfers(from itunes.apple.com)

不过，这两款游戏的画面风格并不相同，另外《Temple Run》依靠倾斜控制让玩家角色走到轨道边缘搜集钱币，但《Subway Surfers》则支持玩家划动手指（而非依靠倾斜控制）指引角色左右闪躲迎面而来的列车和障碍；除此之外，《Temple Run》只允许玩家左右转90度角，限制了玩家提前制定求生策略，而《Subway Surfers》并没有这个机制，因此其玩法比前者更胜一筹。

4）Spaceport.io最新报告指出，基于HTML5的内容在iPhone 4S上的运行速度逊于在笔记本电脑上的运行表现。运行性能最出色的Android智能手机是三星Galaxy S2，但仍然比笔记本电脑慢10倍。从总体上看，智能手机运行HTML5的速度比一般笔记本电脑慢889倍。

iphone-html5(from technobuffalo.com)

5）据BBC报道，有一名拉脱维亚开发者最近因推出会向用户发送收费短信内容的《愤怒的小鸟》和《割绳子》冒牌游戏而被罚款5万英磅，这是首家由于网络欺诈行为而处罚的手机应用公司。

6）据Venturebeat报道，来自Chronic Dev Team团队的黑客日前推出了一款名为Greenpison Absinthe 2.0的越狱软件，几乎可让所有升级到最新版操作系统的iOS设备成功越狱。

iPhone(from venturebeat)

除了运行苹果32纳米芯片的iPad 2之外，该软件可与任何iOS设备兼容。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Apple ups App Store discoverability with Editor’s Choice promo

by Keith Andrew

No stranger to picking specific apps to push, Apple has upped its game in the promo stakes with the launch of a new Editor’s Choice spot on the App Store.

The new tool spans both apps and games, with Chillingo’s Air Mail currently occupying the spot in the UK while MiniClip’s Extreme Skater is the game of choice in the US.

On board with the editor

The move is being pitched as a way of improving overall discoverability on the App Store – often cited as the platform’s biggest problem, with the number of apps swelling further week by week.

It’s not clear how Apple will go about choosing the apps and games to fit into this slot, however.

So far, only titles from established players appeared to have been picked – the first standard app to spot the Editor’s Choice label being Facebook’s new camera app.

Apple has also taken to Twitter to launch a new ‘App of the Week’ initiative, with one title a week offered to consumers without charge through the social network – the first game to be pushed being ZeptoLab’s Cut the Rope: Experiments, which usually retails for 69p/99c. （source:pocketgamer）

2）Nordic Game 2012: Wooga on the long haul process of making Diamond Dash a success on iOS

by Jon Jordan

German publisher Wooga has built its games business on Facebook.

But with social mobile growing fast, it knew it had to bring its titles to smartphones and tablets too.

That’s what product manager Teemu Haila was talking about at Nordic Game in the context bringing key game Diamond Dash to iOS.

Looking better

Obviously, the key element to redesign was the user interface.

“It needed to be usable by everyone and feel natural on the device,” Haila said.

The process for this was to immediately start testing, even when the design was just a paper mock up. The result of this highly iterative process is that first thing you see when you launch the game is your friends list, which establishes the social element.

Wooga also focused on the game’s tutorial, using metrics to check where people were having problems.

When it thought the game was ready, there was a soft launch of a minimum viable product version for iPhone in Canada in November 2011.

Ironically, though, while Wooga wanted to keep the launch fairly quiet to tweak the gameplay, Apple Canada featured the game.

Get connected

Perhaps the biggest step in development was when the 1.3 version was released in late 2011.

This is what Haila called the viable product. As significant as the new content and UI tweaks, Wooga worked to get more people logging into Facebook to make the most of virality opportunities.

“Previously we had around 28 percent of users logging in. That’s just not enough,” Haila said.

The incentives – such as new lives and soft currency – have pushed this to over 60 percent.

Long haul

More generally, as the company has continued to update the game, also adding hard currency items, Diamond Dash has continued to rise up the top grossing charts. It’s now constantly in the US top 100.

“Mobile is now a sustainable business for us,” Haila said. “We’re in this for the long run.”

And, thanks to the main development for Diamond Dash being handled by a separate Flash development team (the code bases are also separate), only three people at any one time have been working on the iOS version.

However, over 100 people have worked on the project at some point. （source:pocketgamer）

3）Subway Surfers gives Temple Run a run for its money on iOS

by Brandy Shaul

While cloning in the world of mobile and Facebook games is definitely nothing new, it’s rare that a “clone” or “copy” can match the quality standards of those games that inspired them, but in the case of Subway Surfers, this is one iOS game that is definitely giving Temple Run a run for its money.

You’ll play Subway Surfers predominantly as a young graffiti artist, running from a police officer on crowded railroad tracks after tagging a train car. Like in Temple Run, your goal is to run away from the screen for the longest amount of time as possible, collecting coins and earning points along the way. Also like in Temple Run, you’ll find power-ups scattered around the environment, like one that doubles your score for some time, another than makes you run faster, and even a magnet that forces all coins (regardless of their location) to fly into your character.

There are a few major differences between Subway Surfers and Temple Run (aside from their graphical themes, that is), and many of these arguably make Subway Surfers the more enjoyable experience. For one, Temple Run relies on tilt controls to move your character to the edges of a single track to collect coins, avoid gaps, etc. In Subway Surfers, you’ll swipe left and right on the screen to avoid oncoming trains and obstacles, no titling required. Furthermore, Temple Run often makes you turn 90 degree corners left and right, limiting how much you can really plan ahead in order to survive. Subway Surfers doesn’t contain this element, instead allowing you to move between three tracks and see fairly far ahead of you on a semi-curved path.

As you play, Subway Surfers challenges you to complete sets of three missions at a time, such as collecting a certain number of coins or running a specific length, and you can collect tokens along the way that allow you to unlock one of four additional characters with which to play. There are some hitching problems when completing missions that can cause the game to freeze for a short instance as the game pops up a notification that you’ve completed one, and this can sometimes cause you to fail entirely as you run into an obstacle, and the overall loading time to get into the action (the first time you load the app during each session) is also fairly long.

All of that being said, this is one case where the clone might actually outdo the game that inspired it, as the removal of tilt controls and sharp turns makes Subway Surfers a less stressful and arguably more entertaining experience. This isn’t to say that Temple Run is a bad game, as both are definitely a lot of fun to play. With Subway Surfers being free to download though, why not try it out for yourself to see which one you like more?（source:games）

4）HTML5 runs 8x faster on desktop than on mobile — Spaceport.io’s latest PerfMarks Report show that HTML5 runs six times slower on an iPhone 4S than it does on a laptop. The highest performing Android smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S2 ran HTML5 10 times slower. Overall, smartphones ran HTML5 889 times slower than an average laptop.（source:insidemobileapps）

5）Dev fined for Android scam apps – The BBC is reporting a Latvian developer, which released fake versions of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope that set up users to receive unsolicited premium rate SMS messages, has been fined £50,000. It’s the first time a mobile company has been fined for a scam.（source:insidemobileapps）

6）Hackers release untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1, works on most iOS devices

Devindra Hardawar

You just can’t stop those wily jailbreak hackers. Today new software has been released that will fully jailbreak almost any iOS device running the latest iOS update, including the iPhone 4S and new iPad.

Hackers from the Chronic Dev Team have released Greenpis0n Absinthe 2.0, which offers a completely untethered jailbreak — meaning the hack will stick with your device even if you have to reboot it. There have been tethered jailbreaks around for some time, which are more cumbersome since you have to jailbreak every time your iOS device restarts.

Jailbreaking your iPhone allows you to run unauthorized apps and customize your phone in an assortment of ways. It’s a direct affront to Apple’s heavily locked-down app ecosystem, so the company has made each new hardware and software release more difficult for hackers to jailbreak.

The tool is compatible with just about every iOS device, except for iPad 2 models running Apple’s new 32-nanometer chipset.

As always, tread carefully when jailbreaking your device: backup first, and be vigilant when installing unauthorized apps. Though jailbreaking allows for more flexibility with your iOS device, it also opens you up to all sorts security vulnerabilities.（source:venturebeat）